Domino's Pizza creates 1,000 North West jobs to cope with Euro 2016

Former England football player and manager Kevin Keegan "caps" new employee Eva Juhasz, as she joins the Domino's team, which marks the pizza chain's creation of 10,000 new jobs to deal with demand from football fans during UEFA Euro 2016. Picture by: Jon Super/PA Wire

Colin Ainscough

Domino's Pizza is creating 1,000 new jobs in the North West as part of a major recruitment drive ahead of the European Championship and the Olympic Games.

The move is part of plans to hire 10,000 new workers open more than 65 stores in the UK and Ireland this year as it gets set for an upsurge in demand, with three pizzas expected to be ordered every second during Euro 2016.

The bulk of the jobs -1,900 positions - will be created in South East England, while 1,400 new staff will be taken on in London, 1,300 in the North East and 1,000 in the North West.

Chief executive David Wild said: "2016 is a bumper year for Domino's, we have plans to open around 65 new stores and we'll serve up over seven million pizzas during the Euros alone."

Mr Wild said the firm had also brought on board ex-England and Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan to raise awareness about the jobs push.

Domino's announced in March that rock bottom cheese prices had helped the fast food chain rack up double-digit profits last year.

The group, which has more than 869 stores in Britain, said pre-tax profits jumped 20% to £59.3 million in the year to December 27 compared with a year ago, helped by lower costs for fuel, wheat and ''a record-low cheese price''.

It said it was able to save £11 million on food costs alone last year, primarily on cheese and dough.

The firm said in March that like-for-like sales hit 11.7% over the period, while its online operation now accounted for 77.7% of all sales from deliveries, up from 70.8% a year ago. Its app service now accounts for 48.6% of all online sales.

The group opened 61 stores in the UK last year, adding that its UK business had now produced nine successive quarters of double-digit like-for-like growth.

Apart from the UK business, Domino's Pizza also owns the franchises in the Republic of Ireland and Switzerland, as well as Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

Mr Wild said: "We're delighted to have Kevin Keegan capping 11 new Domino's starters ahead of Euro 2016. He's an England legend but we're backing all our home nations this year and think Domino's is the perfect addition to match viewing."

Kevin Keegan said: "I was fortunate enough to give a lot of great players their first caps as England manager and it's fantastic to be capping a new group, albeit on a different playing field.